This week, FBI Director Christopher Wray, who is resigning before President-elect Trump takes office, spoke with 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley about a wide range of subjects, including China’s cyber espionage threat, the terror attack in New Orleans, and his decision to resign, ending his tenure as director of the FBI nearly three years early, and before Trump takes office.
Wray also discussed the Trump investigations and the security of the inauguration next week.
Trump investigations
Scott Pelley: Are you confident that the Trump investigations were done by the book?
Christopher Wray: I have confidence that my expectations have been communicated consistently day after day after day to everybody in the FBI in every investigation that we conduct that we are to do our work in the right way, following the facts wherever they lead, following our rules, following our procedures, being faithful to the idea that we have to be independent and objective and not worry about who’s going to be happy or unhappy about the outcome of our investigation. And so, I will stand on that record.
Scott Pelley: Have you seen any probable cause to open an investigation of any of the people who’ve been involved in the probes of Donald Trump?
Christopher Wray: I think investigations need to be driven by the facts and the law and proper predication. And where those investigations– exist, we should do those investigations. But, in my experience, our people have been dedicated to doing the right thing in the right way throughout.
Scott Pelley: You have confidence in the way those investigations were handled.
Christopher Wray: I have confidence in our people.
Inauguration security
Scott Pelley: We have had the car bomb at the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, the terrorist in New Orleans. Are there any active threats to the inauguration?
Christopher Wray: We’re not tracking any specific or credible threats to the inauguration. What I would tell you, though, is that we’re dealing with a threat landscape where terrorists, whether they be foreign, jihadist inspired, or domestic terrorists or others, can move from radicalization to action quite quickly, often with very crude but still lethal attacks. And so, we are dealing with a terrorist threat landscape that is extremely challenging and that puts a real premium, which has been a point of emphasis for me throughout my tenure, on the FBI working closely with our state and local law enforcement partners, with the rest of the intelligence community, with our foreign partners, and increasingly with the private sector and the community. Because there are often very few dots out there to connect for these types of threats and very little time in which to connect them.
Scott Pelley: How much confidence do you have that the inauguration will be safe?
Christopher Wray: What I would tell you is that I have enormous confidence in the FBI’s men and women in our role as supporting the other agencies, which have the primary responsibility for securing the inauguration. That being, of course, the Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Capitol Police. And I have great confidence in our partners as well, but I have also particular confidence in our role at the FBI in supporting them in their responsibility to safeguard the inauguration.
The videos above were produced by Will Croxton. They were edited by Sarah Shafer.